150 Recreations of a Sportsman 



tuous and gentle art suggestive of silence, of 

 pure waters, and gentle music, and the imagery 

 of beautiful things in nature, it requires no 

 strength of the imagination to associate the 

 builders of the missions with the best of sports 

 and pastimes. There is hardly a California mis- 

 sion whose chimes cannot be heard on some trout 

 stream or good angling grounds, be it San An- 

 tonio de Padua, Santa Clara, San Buenaventura 

 with its steelheads, or San Jose de Guadalupe, 

 beyond which you may reach the trout streams 

 of Mount Hamilton; San Antonio de Pala, on 

 Pala Creek, San Antonio, or La Soledad. 



True the streams are not large, and in summer 

 are very small, especially those of the Coast 

 Range, but the true angler is not after weight 

 or size, and this was the philosophy of Walton; 

 he went fishing not particularly to catch fish, 

 merely using the pastime as a medium for the 

 further enjoyment of nature. And so one may 

 fish the streams of Southern California and in- 

 cidentally find the fine old ruins along El Camino 

 Real, or he may have the missions as the sole 

 objective, in which case I would advise taking 

 rod and line, a good selection of flies, and a 

 well-thumbed Walton. 



